The
large eastern block [dc] facing the Dacostakade canal consists of two joined buildings: the 1912
Hartkamp [hc] and the 1949 Merkelbach [mb]. The two buildings have 8 levels in common. Below
ground [L0-1] are rented basement work-spaces, mainly on the Merkelbach side. Ground level
[L0] is workshops in Merkelbach, the Dijk Theatre and small
businesses in Hartkamp. L1 (known as the "Entresol" because of its relative shallowness) is
businesses in Merkelbach, apts in Hartkamp. Above L1 both buildings have five
apt floors [L2 to L6]. L5 is the last lift-stop and from there one
climbs the stair to the last apt level [L6]: the mb/hc ‘penthouse’. Above this rises
only a small glass 'look-out' pavilion [L7] with a stair to its roof terrace
and radio tower [L8].

This
whole Dacostakade side of Tetterode developed largely as one in its pre- and
early-domestic phases: starting as flimsily divided artists studios, changing in
the late 1980s to a live-in situation: a mix of apt and studio space divided by
solid walls. Since then the buildings have diverged (curiously in tune with
their architectural character). The Merkelbach [mb], a building that gives the
impression of single-minded dedication to work, is still artist/studio
dominated, whereas the older Hartcamp building [hc], that dallies with ‘domestic’
styles, is now socially mixed and (like the Bilderdijk [bd] block) has devolved
into socially different floors, more densely occupied than Merkelbach’s,
with smaller and more intricate spaces. Its less industrial character has
allowed the sense of domesticity to accumulate, while the monolithic austerity
of Merkelbach has not been contradicted.

A
picture taken when Merkelbach's first workshop building was completed but before
the Hartcamp south stair was extended upwards to (presumably) serve the L6 1963
penthouse.

In
1949 Merkelbach was finally able to complete his building.

DACOSTAKADE
BUILDING: DACOSTAKADE (EAST) FACADE

(pic
4-5-2008 / to WWS)

View
across the Dacostakade canal of the east facade
of the [dc] block.

1912
Hartcamp [hc] shows its 'domestic' face (presumably supposed to 'complement'
Dacostakade's 19C housing blocks) while 1949 Merkelbach [mb] flaunts an
easthetic of economy that renders 'factory' as elegant a function as any other (a
value endorsed by the grandeur it affords its presently infesting apartments).

DACOSTAKADE
BUILDING: INNER (WEST) FACADE

(pic
8-93 / to E)

We
are are looking across at the inner facade
of the Dacostakade [dc] block from the Bilderdijk [bd] block's roof. At their N and S ends workshops link
the two blocks, south of the connecting bridges they share Tetterode's
enclosed courtyard.

The
Dacostakade block's
north half, the 'Merkelbach' building [mb] and its south half, the 'Hartkamp'
building [hc], share
a central stair/lift from which the two bridges cross to Bilderdijk.

Workshops
obscure Merkelbach's ground level L0; just above
their roof are the thin windows of the uniquely shallow floor L1, the so
called "entresol" - in Merkelbach it is occupied by workshops
and businesses, in Hartcamp by apts. Above it are L2/3/4/5: four levels of apts, studio-apts, or studios - arranged on each side
(and in
Merkelbach across the ends) of central passages branching from the centre
stair. Over all is L6: the penthouse, its Hartkamp portion a single
studio-apt, the larger Merkelbach portion divided into 3 studio-apts entered from an external
terrace (a tiny & unique 'row-house' situation). Surmounting all is
the tiny 'look-out' room L7 and its L8 roof with Tetterode's radio-aerial.

Entering at
Dacostakade 158 on the edge of
the old building (perhaps with a key on a kite-string thrown from a high window)
one traverses a bent passage that squeezed the mis-calculated theatre-wall into
a curve flanked by terminal ‘rustication’ [1] - the strange wall is
flush-set with panels of face-height glass and mirror, redeeming the mistake as
‘art’: the introduction to the severe and serious practicality of
Merkelbach.

If one misses the lift and stair one can wander into a ground
floor that is a confusion of junctions between disparate places and routes,
left-overs of piecemeal enclosures (mostly of workshops), winding across the
width of the site in a single-story muddle of layered bikes and ad hoc
conversions strangely giving way to 1920s panelling, mirrors and marble, a
silent cool empty fossil foyer opening into the traffic-roar of the
Bilderdijkstraat [2].

The lift in its cluttered dark corner (opposite uninvitingly
large stairs - they have the scale of climbing a house between each floor)
stares orange out of its doors’ eyes: steel-rimmed portholes open into a blood
red box lit by a tungsten bulb; heavy steel doors swing open as if to a
banqueting room. One rises past the inside lips of floors and daylight-flashing
ports in numbered doors [3].

On five lift-levels the smooth valves of the lift doors are
flanked by locked and belled floor doors - riveted, with strap-hinges, severe
rectangular stares and small handle-noses. Each leads into a floor-enclave: 1949
Merkelbach on the west hand, 1912 Hartcamp on the east. On these landings one
can feel stranded high-up in a senseless place locked out of Tetterode’s inner
life.

However once inside there is rarely the communal sense of the
Bilderdijk enclaves; on all these floors a more or less straight central
passage serves the living-spaces, doors to the right, left, and end. In
Merkelbach especially even these inner doors are almost always closed and often
locked: there is a working rather than domestic atmosphere...it feels as if the
severe concrete floors/ceilings and the cement-block and boarded walls are too
simple to hide rich and complex apartments, they resemble those in
studio-converted warehouses.

Indeed in 1985 the Collective had decided to reserve
Merkelbach for studios and relocate studios when vacated in other
buildings...distilling domesticity. However in spite of this policy, by 1994
Merkelbach had at least 13 living-spaces among its studios, and behind its
austere inner facades are some of the most developed and ambitious apts in Tetterode.. After the ‘86 legalisation a ‘stick and carrot’
situation pertained: the new rents (approx 1000% rise over squat levels) and the
inducement of Het Oosten’s internal renovation fund precipitated an intense
period (‘87-’88) of building - except for two spaces walled in ‘85,
divisions had previously been plastic curtains or flimsy wood and board, now
everywhere was divided by cement-block walls. Separation of work and home was
financially unsustainable - apartment construction was stimulated and the huge
studio spaces differentiated internally or were simply divided into work and domestic portions.

Dacostakade's highest living level
(mb-L6/hc-L6) is a steel and glass-walled ‘penthouse’ that opens north and south from the top landing of the
central stair. Its Merkelbach wing was the workers' canteen, stepped back under a shading
roof and served by a railed pavement - now divided into three magnificent
studio/apartments. Its 1963 extension across the Hartcamp building was the ‘directors
dining-suite’ which terminates at its S end in a little glass room shaded under
the slatted ‘bris-soleil’ of its extended roof, opening on a terrace rimmed
with a steel ships rail - guarding a dizzy drop into the central courtyard with its long
brick chimney rising up and past - now a grass lawn strewn with a child’s toys
and edged with flowers - a ‘suburban garden’ absurdly high above the domestic
roof-tops of the Kinkerstraat. Almost since the squat’s inception the glass
room has been the bedroom of Frank April, and the adjoining ‘dining-room’,
now a single huge decor-stripped space with an oil-drum wood-stove, his studio/living-room. The little “sky-garden” is a
Collective place - the termination of a stair that winds
down Hartcamp's south east corner to street entry Dacostakade 164, serving as exclusive
access to every Hartcamp enclave level below.

The climb to Tetterode's ultimate peak begins between the two wings of the ‘penthouse’. An elegant steel stair twists
up into a tiny glass pavilion like the ‘look-out’ of an airship, furnished
with mats and empty wine bottles. Outside and higher still up steel steps, one
stands on its head at 31 metres - Tetterode’s final platform but not its
highest point, here a 12½ metre lattice radio transmission mast rises and the whole horizon
of Amsterdam surrounds it.

When re-visited in 2008 the
lift displayed the presence of Tetterode's young. On the 'wall' of doors and
floor-sections that the lift (an open fronted steel box) moves past on its
vertical journeys they had painted a continuous under-sea theme that climaxes at
each door-level as an individual scene. The lift scans its lift-sized opening up
and down across the surface of this huge scroll-like painting and when it stops
presents that floor's portion as a 'picture'. [Ref:
NOTE-8: Tetterode's painted lift]

DACOSTAKADE:
CENTRE LIFT - INTERIOR REWIRED LAMP

(pic
8-1993 / to S)

An
economical adaptation: the lift lamp is used as a kind of glass pot in which
stands a (fragile) flourescent tube, wired to the bulb terminals.

DACOSTAKADE L0: CENTRE FOYER LIFT & STAIR - LITTER BESIDE THE LIFT

(pic 16-4-2008 / to N)

DACOSTAKADE L0: CENTRE FOYER STAIR & EXIT TO COURTYARD

(pic
8-4-2008 / to SW )

DACOSTAKADE L0 TO L1: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT HALF-LANDING (NIGHT)

(pic 8-1993 / to E)

DACOSTAKADE L1: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING - mb1 ENTRESOL LOBBY

(pic 12-4-2006 / to NNW)

Level 1 is the only landing whose north-side Merkelback entry is recessed,
forming a lobby to the "Entresol" work-space floor [mb1e]. An
isolated apt opens on the east side [door right].

DACOSTAKADE L1 TO L2: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT HALF-LANDING (NIGHT)

(pic 28-4-2008 / to NE)

At
night on the upper levels the reddened lift doors have hardly dislodged the
sinister industrial gloom.

DACOSTAKADE
L2: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING

(pic 25-4-2008 / to N)

The entry door of enclave mb-L2.

DACOSTAKADE
L2: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING AND BRIDGE FOYER

(pic 5-5-2008 / to W)

Levels 2 and 3 landings extend south into Hartcamp enabling access to the L2 and
L3 bridges to the west-side Bilderdijk old building.

This is the lower of the two bridges that connect the two residential blocks.

DACOSTAKADE
L2: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING

(pic 12-4-2006 / to SW)

The entry to the left is into the bridge foyer.

DACOSTAKADE
L3: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT L3 LANDING (NIGHT)

(pic
8-1993 / to E)

The
lift's double-door faces us, the left double-door is Merkelbach L3 enclave.
The right opening accesses the door of Hartcamp L3 enclave and the upper
bridge to Bilderdijk.

This is the upper of the two bridges that connect to Bilderdijk old building.

DACOSTAKADE
L3: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT
LANDING (NIGHT)

(pic
28-4-2008 / to W)

DACOSTAKADE
L3 TO L4: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT HALF-LANDING - WINDOW

(pic 5-5-2008 / to WWS)

DACOSTAKADE
L4: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING (NIGHT)

(pic 30-4-2008 / to NE)

DACOSTAKADE
L4: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING

(pic 2-5-2008 / to N)

'Meaningless'
and/or 'inexplicably located' objects stimulate an atavistic fear and a correlatedautomatic interpreting; such occasions often have a
tinge of animism, an alert sense of live presence: a translation of inexplicable
identity and location into an unpredictability proper to a live thing. (A dream:
the enclave door is opened and the inexplicable plaster lump which seems to live
on the landing like a huge worm.is blindly attracted to it.)

[Grotesque
'behaviours' of inexplicable objects are documented throughout the SILO
SQUAT Section. The Silo was a phantasmagorically rich environment.]

DACOSTAKADE
L4: CENTRE STAIR/LIFT LANDING - 'SCULPTURE' (NIGHT)

(pic 30-4-2008 / to NNE)

A mass of
plaster that seems to have hardened in a plastic bag and a core cut through
the thickness of a dc wall, probably during the 1986
gas installation.

The
east side of the ultimate landing. The centre door is the redundant
passenger lift (the big freight lift terminates at L5); to the right is the
lobby of the Hartcamp 'penthouse' and exit to the Merkelbach 'penthouse'.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: CENTRE STAIR LANDING - EAST SIDE PENTHOUSES' LOBBY

(pic 24-9-2007 / to E)

To the right is the door
into Hartcamp's 'penthouse' - the directors' dining room, now Frank April's
living-space and studio. Ahead is the exit onto a small terrace from which
the three Merkelbach 'penthouse' apts are accessed.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: CENTRE STAIR LANDING - STAIR TO L7 'LOOKOUT' PAVILION

(paste-up
2-pics 19-4-2008 / to SSE)

DACOSTAKADE
L6/L7: STAIR FROM L6 LANDING UP TO L7 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION

(pic
19-4-2008 / to S)

Merkelbach's
steel and glass enclosed stair up to his 'look-out' pavilion.

DACOSTAKADE
L7: STAIR DOWN TO L6 LANDING FROM 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION

(pic
19-10-2006 / to SE)

DACOSTAKADE L7: 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION

(pic
19-4-2008 / to W)

DACOSTAKADE L7: 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION
(pic 8-1993 / to EEN)

Beyond
the 'pillar'-chimney is an exit to the Merkelbach building's main roof
and a stair up to the 'look-out' room's roof-terrace

DACOSTAKADE L7: 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION
(pic 8-1993 / to EES)

The 'look-out' room seen through the open door to the Merkelbach
building's main roof.

DACOSTAKADE L7: 'LOOK-OUT' PAVILION WITH STAIR TO ROOF-TERRACE L8

(pic 19-4-2008 / to NE)

The look-out' pavilion from the roof of the L6 penthouse. The pavilion's
door accesses boat-like steps to Tetterode's highest place - the pavilion's
L8 roof-terrace.

Our
view up encounters two obstructions: at L2 a ledge of floor projects into the
shaft supporting a spiral stair to an office in the upper half of L2's
landing; at L3 the shaft is floored for store-space.

The
lift doors have been removed, and a small lobby made that juts into the
shaft: a plank platform backed with walls of concrete-reinforcing wire. In this enclosure a delicate steel welded spiral stair climbs half the height of the tall
landing, to a mezzanine office in its upper half.

We
are standing on the stair in the upper part of L2 looking down through the mesh of
the lift-shaft and through the spiral stair's
diaphanous 'cage'. In the north upper
half of the high landing's space a walled mezzanine has been built, with a
blue 'front-door' reached by the flimsy spiral stair. In the 1990's this was
an office which administered the needs of immigrant refugees.

DACOSTAKADE
L2/3: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR HALF-LANDING

(pic
12-4-2006 / to SE)

DACOSTAKADE
L3: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR LANDING - LIFT STORE

(pic
12-4-2006 / to WWN)

On
this level, behind the barred doors, the empty lift-shaft is floored and serves for storage.

At the
left is the south entry of floor-enclave L3, which uses the large landing to
store a surplus of posessions.

DACOSTAKADE
L4: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR LANDING - E SIDE PAST LIFT STORE

(pic
12-4-2006 / to NNW)

On this
level also, the empty lift-shaft is (in 2006) floored and used for storage.

DACOSTAKADE
L4: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR LANDING - LIFT

(pic
12-4-2006 / to SE)

DACOSTAKADE
L4: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR LANDING - N WALL

(pic
12-4-2006 / to NNE)

At the
left is the south entry to floor-enclave L4; some of whose domestic/service
functions have spilled onto the large landing.

DACOSTAKADE
L4/5:
HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR HALF-LANDING - BIKE & MATTRESS

(pic
12-4-2006 / to SE)

The
strange pose of the bike amplifies the odd conjunction of stair-diagonals, horizontal ladder and ridged board; directing a disconcerting illusion of
'perspective' cues by its suggestion of purposeful leaping speed.

Its
position is presumably practical - the slope of the mattress would have slid
it to the smooth floor but for the ledge of hidden frame that grips the
wheel.

DACOSTAKADE
L5: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR LANDING - LIFT
STORE

(paste-up
2-pics 12-4-2006 / to WWN)

A
caged ladder.

DACOSTAKADE
L5: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR L5 LANDING - WITH APT ENTRY

(pic
12-4-2006 / to WWN)

One
of two living-spaces in Hartcamp independent of an enclave (the other
occupies the whole L6 penthouse) opens its steel-barred front-door directly
onto the L5 landing, and strews domestic accoutrements from there to the L6
terrace exit.

DACOSTAKADE
L5/6: HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR HALF LANDING
- VIEW DOWN

(pic
12-4-2006 / to WWN)

DACOSTAKADE
L5/6:
HARTCAMP SOUTH STAIR HALF-LANDING

(pic
8-1993 / to EEN)

By
1993 the
L5 apt had outgrown its bounds and furnished its neighbour stair and L6
above it with signs of domesticity. On reaching the final floor one realised
the stair's low ceiling was a small room built over it and reached via a
narrow passage above its rght hand side.

When
next visited in 2006 the constructions that had intruded over the stair had
been removed, probably under collective pressure and apparently after the
late 1990s repaint - note remaining traces of their presence.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: HARTCAMP CORRIDOR EXIT TO "SKY-LAWN"

(pic
12-4-2006 / to WWS)

Finally one reaches L6
and, after a
few corners and doors - through what appears to be an outlying suburb of the L5
apt below - one finds a
door to Hartcamp's final destination, a gardened terrace that I called the 'Sky Lawn'.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: HARTCAMP ENTRY TO "SKY-LAWN''

(pic
12-4-2006 / to EEN)

The
door in last picture from the outside - opens to a remarkable spatial
suprise.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: HARTCAMP "SKY-LAWN''

(pic
8-1993 / to
WWS)

Past
Frank April's bedroom (in the directors' penthouse) is a little garden on
Hartcamp's SW corner, with views to the city's horizon and into
Tetterode's centre Courtyard.

DACOSTAKADE
L6: HARTCAMP "SKY-LAWN''

(pic
8-1993 / to SE)

DACOSTAKADE
L6: HARTCAMP "SKY-LAWN'' - VIEW OVER TETTERODE COURTYARD

(pic
8-1993 / to WWS)

.

HOMES AND STUDIO-APTS IN THE DACOSTAKADE BUILDINGS
[Written 4-1996 and 2008]

Unlike Merkelbach, whose enclave corridors
wander between the walled-in studio/apts like 'leftover space' and would
presumably be truncated cul-de-sacs if safety regulations had not required them to reach
the external fire escape, Hartcamp's floors are open to normal access at both
ends. Rising
through every level at Hartcamp's SE corner is a large lift encircled by a stair (2-bays long and almost
half the building's width) and room-sized
landings with locked doors to its enclaves. Thus, unlike Merkelbach, that shares the
Dacostakade Central Stair with every user of the block, Hartcamp has its own
exclusive
access directly from the street (and room-sized landings on all levels of this
stair, plus a floor-sectioned lift-shaft for storage). It seems possible
that (at least on L1/2/3/4) that Hartcamp's bracketing entries may have focussed the
'straight throughness' of its enclave corridors and thus the
disposition of its apts, whereas
Merkelbach's wandering access-ways are what one would expect where a (relatively
benign) competition for maximum living-space is of primary concern, when space divisions grow ad hoc
and enclave access corridors are, in terms of routine use, cul-de-sacs.

Noticable in the mid 90s was a new stage in the evolution of Dacostakade’s living-spaces:
the advent of elaborate, self-contained, sometimes ‘family homes. However at
that time, apart from an
extraordinary example in Hartcamp [1], this development was almost
exclusive to Merkelbach where spaces are usually large enough to contain
‘houses’ rather than ‘elaborated bed-sits’, and where as ‘working-artists’
the inhabitants seem more independent of each other - bound together, if at all,
more by shared responsibility for work conditions than sociability. Inside
Hartcamp's more vocationally mixed floors the sense of a social-enclave is strong [2]
- reinforced by the straight centre corridors whose rows of apt doors visibly signal 'sharing';
exhibited in the obviously shared telephones, bathrooms, and socially used
sitting/eating rooms with pictures, tv, sofa, and ‘private’ domestic objects
‘lying around’; all affording a 'hostel-like' atmosphere - very different from (for instance) mb-5’s tiny ‘left-over’
tiled cooking-space, with its empty cupboard and dusty drainer! [mb-5
Kit].

It's
interesting to compare the SILO’s joined-up ‘neighbourhoods’ with
Tetterode's closed dc and bd floor-enclaves. Tetterode's are socially-local, ‘safe’,
locked, like shared hostel floors - unlike the SILO where apt facades open
onto open-circulation 'streets’ that may be ‘furnished’ with shared ‘pissoirs’,
bathrooms, store-spaces, but never kitchen-diners and telephones!

.

The following
nine pages will show 12 enclaves and 3 independent apartments, comprising
33 of Dacostakade's living-/work-spaces. First the
Merkelbach building [mb] and second the Hartcamp [hc]: